Today in History

607
The 12th recorded passage of Halley's Comet occurs.
1519
Hernando Cortez lands in what will become Mexico.
1660
A statute is passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia.
1777
Congress orders its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the American army.
1781 
Astronomer William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, which he names 'Georgium Sidus,' in honor of King George III.
1793
Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin.
1861 
Jefferson Davis signs a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.
1868 
The U.S. Senate begins the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
1881 
Czar Alexander II is assassinated when a bomb is thrown at him near his palace.
1915
The Germans repel a British Expeditionary Force attack at the battle of Neuve Chapelle in France.
1918
Women are scheduled to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men.
1935 
A three-thousand-year-old archive is found in Jerusalem confirming biblical history.
1940 
Finland capitulates conditionally to Soviet terms, but maintains its independence.
1941 
Hitler issues an edict calling for an invasion of the Soviet Union.
1942 
Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps becomes the first woman colonel in the U.S. Army.
1943
Japanese forces end their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.
1951
Israel demands $1.5 billion in German reparations for the cost of caring for war refugees.
1957
The FBI arrests Jimmy Hoffa on bribery charges.
1963 
China invites Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev to visit Beijing.
1970 
Cambodia orders Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.
1974 
The U.S. Senate votes 54-33 to restore the death penalty.
1974 
Arab nations decide to end the oil embargo on the United States.
1981
The United States plans to send 15 Green Berets to El Salvador as military advisors.
1985
Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the new leader of the Soviet Union.
1991 
Exxon pays $1 billion in fines and costs for the clean-up of the Alaskan oil spill.